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THE 

INSPIRATION 

BOOKS 




Class JlXiDl 

Book_Jl3_ 

Copyright N° 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE INSPIRATION BOOKS 

EDITED BY 

Thomas Tapper, Litt. D. 

PER VOLUME 35 CENTS 
A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

BY THOMAS TAPPER 

WOMEN WHO HAVE MADE GOOD 

BY MURRAY JOHNSON 

GETTING ON IN LIFE 

BY THOMAS TAPPER 

WORKING FOR THE BOSS 

BY HENRY FIELDS 

THRIFT 

BY THOMAS TAPPER 

THE BOY AS A CITIZEN 

BY GEORGE CECIL BALDWIN 

KEEP UP YOUR COURAGE 
STORIES 

BY FRANKLIN P. LUCAS 

THE STAIRWAY OF SUCCESS 

BY EDMUND STOVER 

THE COST OF LIVING 

BY THOMAS TAPPER 

MAKING LIFE WORTH WHILE 

BY WILLIAM C. BISHOP 



A SCORE 
OF FAMOUS MEN 



BY 

THOMAS TAPPER, Litt. D. 

Lecturer in New York University, Cornell 
University Summer School, and the 
Institute of Musical Art of 
the City of New- 
York. 




THE PLATT & PECK CO, 



CT»o7 
T3 



Copyright, 1913, by 
THE PLATT & PECK CO. 



DEC 27 1913 



e::i.A361323 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A Slave ., . 9 

The Philosopher and the Wild Pabsnip . . 14 
The Empebob and his Note-Book .... 20 

The Band Man and the Stabs 25 

The Fatheb of English Wood Engbaving . .31 

Chables Dickens 39 

A Scotchman 44 

A Rich Man's Son . . . . . ... .50 

A Blind Boy 55 

A Poob Fabmeb 60 

A Man Who Did Things .66 

Fabm to Palace . . * . . 72 

A New England Philosopheb . . . . ; . . 76 

A Lame Boy 82 

An Ibish Boy 88 

The Fatheb of a Gbeat State 93 

A Wbiteb of Fables 98 

Walking to London . 103 

Lincoln and his Books ....... 108 



A SCORE OF FAMOUS 
MEN 

A SLAVE 

HE was born in Greece, about the year 
50. You may think this was a long 
time ago. It is also a long time for a slave 
to be remembered. 

No one knows even the name of his father 
and mother, nor how he reached Rome. But 
he did reach that city, and was slave boy to 
a friend of Nero, the emperor who played 
the fiddle while Rome was burning. 

One day this slave boy's master was amus- 
ing himself by twisting the boy's leg. The 
boy, whose name was Epictetus, smiled and 
said: 

9 



10 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

"You will break it" 

The master gave it one more twist, just to 
see how much the boy could stand. 

"Did I not tell you that you would break 
it?" 

So, with a broken leg, this slave boy left 
Rome and became a philosopher. 

When he had settled down to live in a 
small hut, with a bed and a lamp for furni- 
ture he began to lecture, to anyone who 
cared to listen, on philosophy. His princi- 
pal subject was, "Bear and Forbear." All 
classes of people came to hear him, and after 
his death one of his admirers paid over five 
hundred dollars for his lamp. 

Another of the followers of this slave philos- 
opher wrote his lectures out in eight small 
books, only four of which remain. 

These four books, or chapters, you can buy 
in one volume for about thirty-five cents 
(which is about what his lamp was worth), 
and you can read some of the most practical 



A SLAVE 11 



directions for living successfully in the United 
States in the present time that can be found. 

Hence, in one sense, his book becomes a 
lamp, for by reading it one can see how to 
live. 

A modern writer says the philosophy of 
Epictetus is of the most practical character. 
He talks always about the best way to live. 
We need that teaching in these days as much, 
perhaps, as the Romans did. He used to tell 
his pupils that to come to him for lessons was 
like going to a surgeon. "You cannot go out 
smiling after the operation; but in pain." 

In a chapter called "The Game of Life," 
he says: "Things are not in my power, but 
to will is in my power." It may, as he 
said, be a little painful to apply the meaning 
of this. Epictetus means that if you are un- 
happy because you want a lot of things and 
cannot get them, turn to your will power and 
tell it to make you happy. 

It is a common thing in these days to see 



12 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

women who buy everything in sight, from 
motor cars to lovely hats, who are unhappy 
nevertheless. They need the light of the lamp 
of Epictetus. 

About himself he says — and this applies to 
the person who "just loves to travel" — 
"Wherever I go it will be well with me, not 
because of the place, but because of my opin- 
ion about things." 

This shows a specialist in common sense. 

"Lift up thy head and be delivered from 
slavery," he says. 

Do we need that advice in these days ? Ask 
the man who is a slave to drink, or the woman 
who is a slave to fashion. 

""When I find a good teacher," he says, "it 
is for me to practice what he teaches." 

If this is the first time you have heard of 
Epictetus, the Greek slave, you have found a 
good teacher. It is for you to practice what 
he teaches. 

Kemember this : 



A SLAVE 13 



1. He was born a slave. 

2. He smiled when his master broke his leg. 

3. His name has been kept alive nearly 
nineteen hundred years. 

4. Through the wonderful arts of writing 
and printing you can to-day read what he 
said. 

5. This means that a man who lived two 
thousand years ago can influence you 

TO-DAY. 

6. That is, he can influence you if you want 
to be influenced. 



THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE WILD 
PARSNIP 

ONCE upon a time, and about twenty- 
four hundred years ago, there wandered 
about the streets of the City of Athens, in 
Greece, an ill-clad man who was said to be the 
homeliest person in the world. 

A man with that reputation is sure to be 
noticed. And this man was very much no- 
ticed, not only because he was homely, but 
because he talked. 

He talked with anyone who would listen: 
Potters, bakers, poets, teachers, soldiers, sons 
of rich men — everybody, in fact, was welcome 
to converse with him, or to stop and listen to 
him. 

He drew a bigger crowd than you see stand- 
ing around the sidewalk peddlers in Four- 

14 



PHILOSOPHER AND PARSNIP 15 

teenth street. And he was not selling things, 
either. 

He was giving something away, free, to 
anyone who would take it. 

The name of the thing he gave away was 
Wisdom. 

A good many who stood listening to him 
were amused. They liked to hear him ques- 
tion people and turn the laugh on them, just 
as a good many stand in front of the toy man 
in Fourteenth street and laugh to see the tin 
monkey climb the string. They have no in- 
tention of buying the tin monkey, but they 
like to see it go up and down. 

Well, a good many people who stood listen- 
ing to this man, whose name was Socrates, 
never intended to take away any of his Wis- 
dom; but they liked to see him embarrass 
people, and tangle them up by asking them 
questions. 

Now, this man Socrates, was a good man. 
He talked from one year's end to another on 



16 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

the simple subject, "know thyself.' ' He 
specialized all that is implied in this doc- 
trine, first, by living it himself, and, secondly, 
by urging everyone else to do the same sensi- 
ble thing. 

He elected himself to be the teacher of his 
people. He took no money for his instruc- 
tion, and no presents of any kind. He urged 
everybody to cleanse the mind of superstition, 
false beliefs, delusions, fraud, and all the rest 
of the weakening negatives, and to make it 
the serious business of life to be a whole man, 
in order that Athens and Greece might pos- 
sess the most pure-minded people in the 
world. 

He kept this up so long, and began to suc- 
ceed so well that a young lawyer, a sort of 
district attorney, had him arrested for cor- 
rupting the youth. He was brought into 
court and tried. If ever a prisoner embar- 
rassed and tangled up a lawyer, Socrates did 
so with that district attorney. And he did 



PHILOSOPHER AND PARSNIP 17 

the same thing with the judges and everybody 
else — including most of the people of Athens. 
So the jury voted that he should be put to 
death. 

Socrates was then seventy years old. 

You should read the account of that trial. 
It is called the "Apology of Plato" (because 
Plato wrote it out). You can get it from any 
library, and you can read it in an hour. Fol- 
lowing it, you will find another chapter, called 
the Crito, in which you will read how certain 
friends of Socrates offered to smuggle him out 
of the country, so that he could escape death. 

His reply to this was that, to run away, 
even though he was unjustly condemned, 
would be a confession that all the preaching 
he had done for years was humbug. In other 
words, he preferred to die for his principles 
(Know Thyself) than to save his life. 

The way they put a man to death in those 
days was to give him a cup of hemlock. This 
was a drink made from the roots of the wild 



18 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

parsnip, a weed that grows in *the United 
States. 

He talked with his friends up to the time 
the jailer came in with the fatal drink, never 
losing his dignity for a moment, but convers- 
ing as he had for years, and teaching those 
who were with him in the last moments that a 
man who had urged others to be true to them- 
selves, should himself be true, even in the face 
of death. 

Then the jailer handed him the cup. Soc- 
rates drank the hemlock and lay down. The 
peculiar effect of the poison is that it benumbs 
the body. He kept on talking while the 
poison began to numb his feet ; it moved to the 
knees, and he talked; to the thighs, and he 
talked; to the body, and still he talked, beg- 
ging those present to be true to principle. 
All the while the poison was mounting bit by 
bit through the body, until, finally, it reached 
the heart. 

Then the voice was still. 



PHILOSOPHE R AND PARSNIP 19 

But if you go to the library and get the 
book I have spoken of, you will hear his voice 
saying as clearly -as ever: know thyself, 
and be true, which shows that, so far as 
the teachings of a great and simple man are 
concerned, twenty-four hundred years are as 
nothing. 

He is just as much alive to-day as the wild 
parsnip plant is in our fields. 

And he is just as busy as ever giving away 
Wisdom, free, to anyone who wants it enough 
to stop in the midst of the busy life of to-day 
and listen to him. 



THE EMPEROR AND HIS NOTE BOOK 

IF the President of the United States should 
move about freely among the people, 
should do his part in government duties, 
watch the building of the Panama Canal, go 
now and then to the Philippines to see how 
the army is at work, and, as he did these 
things, should pull a note book from his pocket 
and write in it, we might be excused for won- 
dering what he wrote. 

"We might properly expect to find that he 
was taking notes about people, government, 
canals and armies. 

But what should we think if we found that 
instead of notes on these things, he was quietly 
jotting down such statements as these : 

1. Be not satisfied with a superficial view 

of things. 

20 



EMPEROR AND HIS NOTE BOOK 21 

2. Perform every action as though it were 
your last. 

3. Your manners will depend very much 
upon the quality of what you think on, for 
the soul is tinged with the color and complex- 
ion of thought. 

4. A man misbehaves himself toward me: 
what is that to me ? The action is his ; there- 
fore, let him look to it. 

5. The best way of revenge is not to imitate 
the injury. 

There was once a man who did just this 
thing. He was Emperor of the Roman 
people, and his name was Marcus Aurelius. 
Although he was ruler of the greatest empire 
on earth in his time, and as busy as a banker, 
who lives to make more money every day, he 
always had his note book with him. 

Whether he was at home in Rome or in the 
council chamber, or in a distant province sit- 
ting by a camp fire, he attended strictly to the 
business of being an emperor, but the moment 



22 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

this business taught him anything about 
life, he jotted it down in his book. Some 
days he wrote nothing; again, a line or two. 
But, by writing a line or two now and then, 
one soon makes a book. 

This is what happened in the ease of the 
Emperor. The little book he made and car- 
ried in his pocket he called his Talks with 
himself. 

THAT BOOK HELD EVERYTHING HE FOUND 
OUT ABOUT LIFE AND HOW TO LIVE. 

It was not a book about Rome, or the em- 
pire, or How I Shoot Wild Animals; it was 
just a plain statement of what the man found 
out about life, and how to live it to the best 
advantage. 

Even the milkman can write such a book if 
he wants to. All he needs to do is to have 
his note book handy, and jot down the things 
he learns as he drives from one house to the 
next. 

Of course, the milkman could not make a 



EMPEROR AND HIS NOTE BOOK 23 

book like the Emperor's, but, on the other 
hand, the Emperor could not have made one 
like the milkman's. 

This book by Marcus Aurelius was written 
in Latin. It has been translated into many 
languages, English among them, and every 
library has a copy. 

You can get it for the asking, and read what 
there is in life that is worth while to an Em- 
peror, to a milkman, and to yourself. It is 
easy to read, of simple words, simple sen- 
tences, and simple ideas. That is always the 
way a great book is made. 

There are a good many people in the world 
who seem to care little about how to live. 
What they think of most is a pair of tan shoes, 
or a big hat, or enough chewing gum to keep 
their jaws going, or a chocolate eclair every 
now and then. 

But if anyone is even mildly interested in 
learning how to live a little better to-morrow 
than to-day, this book of the Emperor's will 



24 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

be a friend in need, and a great joy. If you 
have such an interest in life, you will not read 
it once, but you will always read it. Here 
and there you may disagree with what Marcus 
Aurelius says. Times and conditions change 
in two thousand years, but, on the whole, you 
will prize it as much as a hungry boy does an 
apple dumpling; more, in fact, for the boy 
can have the apple dumpling only once, but 
you can have the food in this book as many 
times as you are hungry for it. 



THE BAND MAN AND THE STARS 

TRUTH is stranger than fiction. No 
man can imagine anything so wonder- 
ful as that which really happens. 

Such is the case of William Herschel. The 
story of his success ought to brace up anyone, 
no matter how crude his work is, or how little 
he has. 

William was born in Hanover, Germany, in 
1738. Though that is a long time ago, it 
makes no difference, for success is won now 
just as it always has been. His father played 
in the band of the Hanoverian Guard ; and the 
family fortune was such that the boy got little 
or no education. So in this respect, the boy 
of to-day is ahead of him. 

But young Herschel had a desire to learn,. 

and he put in all his spare time studying; 

25 



26 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

music and mathematics. His rule was to do 
everything thoroughly, so he learned these 
two subjects well. At fourteen, William 
joined the band and played as his father did, 
for a living. After a time the band visited 
England, and this led the boy to determine to 
settle there, which he did when he was nine- 
teen. 

He first taught music and played the organ, 
and earned a very poor living, but later he 
moved to Bath, in the south of England, and 
fortune favored him more generously. For 
five or six years he worked hard, and gained a 
solid reputation in Bath as a musician. 

But all the while he kept on studying and 
dreaming about other things. 

His sister came to live with him when he 
was twenty-three, and she said the first thing 
she noticed about his life was this: He 
worked hard at music all day, and when he 
went to his room at night he worked on his 
books as long as he could keep awake. 



BAND MAN AND THE STARS 27 

He had made up his mind to become an 
astronomer. 

He had no telescope, nor could he buy one. 

So he and his sister began the difficult task 
of making a telescope. The first one had a 
small lens, and its tube was made of paste- 
board which his sister put in shape for him. 
Later, he replaced the pasteboard tube with 
one of tin. Poor as this instrument was, he 
saw the glories of the moon, Jupiter and Sat- 
urn with it. 

But he wanted better tools for his profes- 
sion, and by putting in every moment of his 
spare time, he finally constructed a telescope 
of six feet focal length. 

Now this young man was no ordinary star- 
gazer. His object was to study the entire 
heavens, and find its plan of structure, if he 
could. To bring this about he and his sister 
worked at grinding and polishing lenses and 
making better instruments. And he went on 
using every hour of the night he could keep 



28 A SCOEE OF FAMOUS MEN 

awake in viewing the heavens. As his instru- 
ments were not balanced in the modern man- 
ner, he had to fix his telescope to a post and 
walk around it. 

While he did this his sister fed him with 
her own hands so that he could keep his hands 
busy with the instruments he had in them. 

Then, through what might seem an accident, 
this boy, who once played the oboe in the band, 
had a fine chance to meet Opportunity. In 
order to get a clear view of the moon one 
night, he set up his telescope (the one he had 
made) in the street opposite his house. An 
influential man happened to come along the 
street and, seeing the youth, asked permission 
to look at the moon. From the acquaintance 
thus begun, young Herschel was introduced to 
the Koyal Society, and sent to it a paper of 
his own writing on the "Mountains of the 
Moon." 

Now, no one who had seen that boy march- 
ing in the band would ever have suspected 



BAND MAN AND THE STARS 29 

that he had an idea about the mountains of 
the moon in his head. 

But he had. 

And if you have that idea, or one like it, 
don't mind if others do not suspect it. Keep 
at work on your idea, whatever it is. 

With an introduction to the learned society 
Herschel's future was assured. He worked 
hard as long as he lived — and that was to the 
age of eighty-four. He made many discover- 
ies, one of which was the planet Uranus. He 
wrote many papers on astronomy and his 
name became famous. 

One day George the Third invited him to 
come to the royal residence at "Windsor. 
When Herschel arrived the King offered him 
the appointment to be henceforth his private 
astronomer. He accepted the post, for it al- 
lowed him to give all his time to science. 

The salary for this was little, only one 
thousand dollars per year. The man who 
looked through Herschel's telescope that 



30 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

night in the street said, when he heard of this 
appointment: "Never before was honor pur- 
chased by a monarch at so cheap a rate." 

Every biography teaches us something. In 
the case of William Herschel that teaching is 
this: 

A man doing anything can in time do some- 
thing better if he wants to. 

He has only to put in his spare time on the 
better thing and, pretty soon, he can give it 
all his time. 

If it happens that he wants to study stars, 
and he has no telescope, he will be sure to 
make one if he is serious about the stars. 

Even if he has to be fed by the hands of 
another while he is star-gazing, it will be no 
privation. 

A serious young man is sure to attract the 
attention of somebody who will give him a 
lift in life. 

When he gets this lift the rest of the job 
is his to look after and push forward. 



THE FATHER OF ENGLISH WOOD EN- 
GRAVING 

THOMAS BEWICK, born in 1753, was 
known as the Father of English Wood 
Engraving. He came of a very poor family. 
His mother, before her marriage, was kitchen 
maid in the house of a schoolmaster. When 
she was not busy with housework she taught 
the class in Latin. 

The impulse to write poetry was no stronger 
in Robert Burns than to make pictures was in 
Thomas Bewick. Indeed, Bewick showed his 
talent much earlier in life. 

When he was old enough he was sent to 
school, and from his first schoolday to his last 
he was, on the one hand, full of mischief; 
on the other, full of industry. 

When he had written out the lesson on his 

31 



32 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

slate he used to rule off all the remaining 
space, where he drew pictures of all kinds. 
And yet, at this time, he tells us that with the 
exception of a sign or two in the hamlet where 
he lived, he had never seen a picture. 

When he grew old enough to read and study 
from a book, he thought himself very fortu- 
nate, for he could use the margin of every 
page for drawing pictures. Very soon he had 
no margin left on which to draw. Having no 
paper, for paper cost money, he was hard put 
to it to find a place on which to practice his 
talent. Finally he thought of the parish 
church, and going into its burying ground, he 
drew pictures in chalk on all the gravestones. 

The boy's father scolded him for wasting 
his time in picture-making; but he went on 
looking for space of any kind on which he 
could make a mark. "When he had filled all 
the gravestones, he began on the white-washed 
walls of the cottages. 

Of what did he make pictures ? 



FATHER OF ENGRAVING 33 

Practically everything in nature "fur- 
nished me with an endless supply of subjects 
for study." 

All the people in the village thought him a 
great artist and he decorated the walls of 
their rooms, as he once said, "at a very cheap 
rate." On one wall there were birds and in- 
sects; on another, the picture of a hunter; on 
others, of his horse, and of every dog in the 
hunting pack. 

One day, while he was still a little boy a 
great piece of fortune came to him. A friend 
gave him some paper. With a pen and ink 
made from the brambleberry which grew wild 
about his home, he felt that he could try his 
hand at anything. 

The boy made so many pictures of beasts 
and birds, and followed so many hunting 
parties that he soon began to see the cruelty 
of killing animals and birds for sport. This 
came about because, in studying them as the 
subjects of drawing, he learned that their 



34 A SCOEE OF FAMOUS MEN 

beauty is greatest when it is unmarred by 
blood. He learned very early in life that 
a bird or an animal has a wholesome enjoy- 
ment of life, just as a human being has. A 
good many people do not know that im- 
portant fact yet. 

But this boy, who studied nature so much, 
had other things to do; picking up firewood, 
tending sheep, planting and gathering crops. 
Hence, all his picture-making had to be done 
in odd minutes. But by using his odd min- 
utes earnestly he became a successful man. 

Biography seems to teach us that odd min- 
utes will make any man famous if he employs 
them to one purpose. He may use the work-< 
ing day as he pleases ; if he only takes care of 
his spare time his future and fortune are 
safe. 

Then there were the winter evenings that 
came early. The family and the neighbors 
gathered together to sing songs and tell tales 
about the strength and bravery of the heroes 



FATHER OF ENGRAVING 35 

who fought in the border wars. On fair days 
he watched the bees and spiders, the bugs and 
fishes, and learned to draw them so true to 
nature that the skill he was then gaining was 
one day to make him famous. 

Then he grew to be fourteen years old, and, 
following the custom of the times, he was 
" bound out" as apprentice to an engraver; a 
fine fortune for him, for his practice in draw- 
ing came into play. 

All kinds of work was brought into the 
shop. The boy learned it from the very bot- 
tom; from sharpening and tempering the 
tools, to engraving with them. He had a good 
master. "I think," he said, "he was the best 
master in the world for teaching boys, for he 
obliged them to put their hands to every vari- 
ety of work." 

After he had learned to do the coarser kinds 
of engraving — he was then about fifteen — his 
master gave him what they called in the shop 
"nicer jobs." Every time such a job came to 



36 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

his hands he tried to do it better than the 
master himself could do it. 

Meanwhile, between the nicer jobs, h6 
learned to make steel punches, to engrave let- 
ters, and to cut seals. When he had learned 
these arts, he was entrusted with making the 
blocks to be used to illustrate children's story 
books. This task aroused his ambition so far 
that he worked "better than his best" on it, 
and as a result, the Society for the Encour- 
agement of Arts awarded him a prize. The 
prize was to be, as he wished, a gold medal or 
seven pounds in money. He chose the money. 

Being but a boy one wonders how so much 
money — for it was quite a lot in his time — 
would affect him. He answers this himself: 
"In my solitary walks the first resolution I 
made was that of living within my income, 
and of never getting anything on trust. ' ' 

So when the seven pounds came, he said: 
"I never in my life felt greater pleasure than 
in presenting it to my mohter. 



9 9 



FATHER OF ENGRAVING 37 

In the course of time Thomas Bewick made 
pictures and engraved them for many books; 
some were children's books, for which he drew 
as fine pictures as he could, so that other chil- 
dren might have better illustrations in their 
books than he, as a boy, had in his. From 
such work he proceeded to the animals, birds 
and fishes of his country ; then to engraving a 
bank note of such nature that it could not 
be counterfeited. 

Yet his impulse in all the work he did was to 
go to nature for his models, for he had learned 
as a little boy that her supply of everything 
having life is so great that no one could ex- 
haust it. 

All his life long this man was simple, look- 
ing to nature, and listening to her. As an 
inspiration to any boy who wants to win suc- 
cess, his life is full of interest. He was born 
very poor ; he loved his home, poor as it w r as, 
and he loved amusement, but whatever he 
did, whether fishing, hunting, planting or 



38 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

playing, he kept one idea before him always, 
and that was to make his pictures better and 
better every day. 

Thomas Bewick went to school but little, 
and yet he became so well educated that his 
life, written by himself, reads like the work 
of a man whose profession was letters and not 
engraving. 

When he signed his name, which he wrote 
in very beautiful letters, he imprinted upon 
it the impression of his thumb, showing that 
he knew the value of a finger print in identi- 
fying a man. 



CHAELES DICKENS 

THROUGHOUT the English-speaking 
world, Charles Dickens's birthday was 
celebrated on February 7, 1912. In England 
a celebration by more than one hundred fa- 
mous actors and actresses was given, in 
which scenes from the novelist's books were 
represented and performed. 

Dickens invented a wonderful gallery of 
characters. They are attractive because they 
seem right and natural, and they seem right 
and natural not only because they are true 
portraits of individuals, but because they are 
true types. The humble Uriah Heep always 
lives. Every young man is a David Copper- 
field in one way or another. Every pious 
humbug is a Mr. Pecksniff. 

Anyone who knows of the early poverty 

39 



40 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

and struggle to which Charles Dickens was 
exposed, allowing him little schooling, in the 
strict sense, must wonder at his uniform fine 
writing. His vocabulary is extensive, his 
knack in turning phrases, in saying things in 
the most direct way, is remarkable. 

Thackeray had all the advantages in youth, 
of education and travel, and yet his pages are 
not as alive as are those of Dickens. 

A novel by Dickens is so full of character 
that it reminds us of nothing so much as a 
crowded street which he saw and photo- 
graphed in words, fitting everybody in, mak- 
ing every portrait clear, and every habit of 
manner and speech as plain as if the man or 
woman were standing before us. 

In about thirty years Dickens wrote nearly 
as many volumes. Every one of them is alive 
to-day, and every one of them is loved by 
thousands of people. 

The secret of the hold on us that Dickens 
has, is found in the wonderful power of ob- 



CHARLES DICKENS 41 

servation by which he puts plainly before us 
a great host of characters, and by his unfail- 
ing sympathy with human nature. He makes 
us feel this same sympathy, even while we are 
watching, in his pages, the passing crowd of 
his characters. 

Most people read Dickens for pleasure. He 
offers us much more than that. His pages 
are full of people whom we can study to ad- 
vantage, because the same sort of people live 
to-day, and we know them. But, as a rule, 
we do not see them in life as plainly as we see 
them in a book. 

A man can read Dickens and gain this fac- 
ulty. If he does gain it, the whole world about 
him becomes the greatest novel that can be. 
This is the thought that Pope had in mind 
when he said: "The proper study of man- 
kind is man." 

If you love to read Dickens, do not fail to 
let him teach you how to read the world you 
live in. 



42 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

You may never write a novel, but you will 
be forever reading the greatest of all stories, 
and that is the story of life as it is lived every 
day. 

Do not let your sympathy be aroused for a 
character in a novel without learning how to 
have it aroused by people. If Charles Dickens 
had to ride downtown in a street car every 
day, he would probably write a book about 
street car, people. He would select them be- 
cause they are real people, living a real life 
and doing things every day. 

To read a book and get at the original of 
which the author writes, is the one reason for 
reading it. If you can do that, the fact be- 
comes plain that writers write about what they 
see, and about what they think of what they 
see. 

This first-hand reading of people is a great 
thing. You learn to understand them better, 
you judge them more kindly and justly. You 
recognize their shortcomings and their pecu- 



CHARLES DICKENS 43 

liarities. In brief, you, too, become a reader 
of real men and real women. 

Many men have written novels. Every one 
of them had to go to the world about him for 
his material, more or less. To enjoy fully the 
book he writes, you must do the same thing. 

We live in a wonderful world, well worth 
studying. 

No novel can ever be written that ignores 
the world we live in. 

Do not read book-novels alone. 

Read the great world-novel, in which the 
characters are many. 

And remember that you are one of the 
characters; the one you should read most. 



A SCOTCHMAN 

THOMAS CAELYLE was a Scotchman 
and a philosopher. He had a strong 
faculty for seeing things in the right way. 
This made him wish to tell other people what 
he saw and how he understood things. So he 
began to write books. 

You may never have read a book by Thomas 
Carlyle. If not, you will find that his easy 
thinking makes hard reading. The books 
written by Carlyle are certainly not easy to 
master. The reason for this is that he never 
tries to put your mind to sleep ; but to keep it 
awake, alert, active. Treating the mind that 
way is like running up hill. It tires you out, 
but the following week you begin to notice 
that your muscles are firmer, and that you 

44 



A SCOTCHMAN 45 

are stronger. Beading Carlyle exercises the 
mind in the same way. 

A man with well-trained muscles may be a 
success in life, or not. A man with a well- 
trained mind always is, for if the mind be well 
trained it is capable, intent on doing things 
worth while, and of keeping at them until 
they are done. 

This is intended to make it clear why you 
should read Carlyle, at least a little, if you 
have not already done so. 

Carlyle 's English is rugged; so is his 
common sense. The best way to judge a 
man is to note what he has to say about 
a subject with which you are somewhat famil- 
iar. 

Let us assume that you work for a living; 
that you know what work means; what work 
is for ; what a man gains by work. With this 
knowledge at your disposal, read Carlyle 's 
opinion about work and see if he knows what 
he is talking about. If you find that he does, 



46 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

you may then be led to read other of his 
writings. 

Here follows the long and short of his opin- 
ion on work: 

1. Work is noble and sacred. 

2. Just so long as a man works earnestly 
there is hope for him. 

3. If you want to get at the truth of things, 
get work done. 

4. The only blessing a man (or woman) 
needs is to find the best sort of work. This, 
because it gives one a life purpose. 

5. The only real knowledge you can ever get 
comes from work. 

6. Doubt of any kind can only be ended by 
action. 

7. All true work is sacred. 

8. Work is the noblest thing yet discovered 
under God's sky. 

These are the opinions of Carlyle on work, 
taken from a chapter that would fill many 
pages of this book. He is no preacher of 



A SCOTCHMAN 47 

the easy life, but of the strenuous life. When 
he stands on the street corner and sees the 
crowd go by, he picks out those who have 
to work as far more fortunate than those 
who do not have to work. 

Now, Carlyle lived to be eighty-six years old 
and never changed his opinion on work. The 
only conclusion that should come to us is this : 

Are we aware of the great fortune work is 
for us? 

Probably not. 

The wise thing to do then, is this : 

As work is fortune, and as we must work, let 
us understand this thing "work" and get 

THE FORTUNE OUT OF IT. 

Everybody wants fortune. Well, here it is 
in our day's Job. 

Work is noble and sacred. 

To attend to business (believing that) just 
one day, will make a new man out of a wreck. 

There is hope for the man who works, be- 
cause he will find in work and in himself 



48 A SCOEE OF FAMOUS MEN 

(which is the same thing) the thing he wants — 
Fortune. 

Work is a blessing. 

Because it opens the mind and you dig out 
the gold, silver and other precious things with 
which the world of work is filled. 

Is it all a day dream ? 

Well, just compare Carlyle's point of view 
on work with that of the Man with the Grouch. 
He hates work. He is not happy. To him 
work is neither sacred nor welcome. Hence, 
he is getting nothing out of it. And, hence, 
again, he is getting nothing out of himself. 

He is waiting for things to turn up. and 
they don't turn. He meets you on the 
street corner and gives you his hard luck 
story. The world is against him; he has no 
chance, etc. 

He is right: The world is against him, be- 
cause he has come to live on the earth and 

HAS FAILED TO LEARN HOW TO SPEAK THE LAN- 
GUAGE OF THE EARTH. 



A SCOTCHMAN 49 

This language is action. 

Those who speak this language will master 
the earth. But those who do not learn to 
speak it are crushed by the earth. 

So Carlyle is worth reading. 



A EICH MAN'S SON 

JOHN EUSKIN became a famous man, 
despite the worst handicap a boy can 
have. That handicap was this: he had a 

EICH FATHER. 

You may think this is no handicap to a 
young man. As a matter of fact, it is one of 
the worst, or it may be. There are some sig- 
nificant young men in American business af- 
fairs who are succeeding despite the fact that 
they inherited money. On analysis, you will 
find that they do not find their fortune in 
wealth, but in activity. They would rather 
do things than have things. 

The first mistake the average person makes 
about money is in regard to its purchasing 
power. The fact is, it can buy the things 

50 



A RICH MAN'S SON 51 

of little permanent use, but not those that 
give permanent satisfaction. 

Mayme Eileen may think a string of pearls 
the one great joy of life. But in days of 
trouble they give her no comfort (except by 
way of the pawnbroker) ; she cannot talk to 
them, nor can they do more for her than to 
blink their little spots of light. 

What Mayme Eileen needs in that moment, 
is something that will help her not to give in 
to sorrow, not to misread life, not to come to 
wrong conclusions. 

In brief, it will do her no harm to be rich in 
pearls, if she is at the same time rich in mind. 

John Ruskin's name is being spread about 
yet — even by the department stores, for they 
sell his most popular book, called "Sesame 
and Lilies," one of the best descriptions of 
how to get on in life that has ever been writ- 
ten. 

His father was a wine merchant; his 
mother, a stern and rigid character, who 



52 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

brought up the boy with severity. Every 
day, from his early childhood, she called him 
to her side and he read aloud to her a chap- 
ter from the Bible, genealogies and all, until 
the book was finished. Then they turned 
back to page one and began it over again. 
This daily practice continued into the years 
of his manhood. 

It is said that Euskin taught himself to 
read by copying print, and thereby mastering 
his letters. Despite popular discussion, there 
are more than twenty famous men in the 
world, and they all show us one common qual- 
ity. That is, persistence; keeping at the 
thing they want to do, whether they are rich 
or poor. 

In his childhood, Euskin began to write, 
and he wrote all his life long. He wrote his 
first letter at the age of four. 

At the age of seven he began to write orig- 
inal works, and to illustrate them with pic- 
tures of his own drawing. 



A EICH MAN'S SON 53 

He wrote from seven years of age, and 
throughout his childhood, thousands of lines 
of poetry describing what he saw as he trav- 
eled by coach with his father, who sold wine 
to the merchants throughout Great Britain. 

At the age of ten he wrote a play in two 
acts, entitled "The Battle of Waterloo.' ' 
But two years before, he had written a poem 
of this character: 

"These dropping waters that come from the rocks, 
And many a hole, like the haunt of a fox; 
That silvery stream that runs babbling along, 
Making a murmuring, dancing song." 

And so on, until he was eighty years of 
age. 

Money and things never troubled him. 
He troubled them. He learned their value 
and did not mistake it, but he did not, on the 
other hand, overrate it. In his scheme of 
doing things the one principal fact ever be- 
fore him — as it ought to be before you — was 
to get the best out of John Ruskin. Not out 



54 A SCOEE OP FAMOUS MEN 

of money or a string of pearls, but out of 
himself. 

The greatest fortune a young man can pos- 
sess is to know that there is something in him 
of use to himself and to other people. When 
he knows this, he begins to express himself, 
that is, to press himself out; that is, again, 
to press the power in himself out into the 
open for others to see. 

Now a youth doing the town with a liberal 
allowance, is expressing himself, sure enough. 
But he is expressing (or pressing out) not 
what the Creator put in him, but what the 
lights and glamour of the town put in him. 
It makes all the difference in the world 
whether you are trying to get at yourself or 
at what seem to be the joys of the street. 



K BLIND BOY 

FEW of us realize how life is simplified 
by good roads. The fact that a good 
path leads from one place to another, means 
(1) that it will save us time and strength 
getting between the two places; (2) that 
someone made it. 

There was born nearly two centuries ago 
into the family of poor working people, a 
son, who was named John Metcalf . At the 
age of six John was afflicted with smallpox, 
which destroyed his sight. 

He used to grope about the house, learn- 
ing how to find his way by remembering the 
order of the doors, the wall, the mantelpiece. 
When he had learned to do this in the house, 
he began in the same way to learn the little 
village where he lived. In three years he 

55 



56 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

could find his way alone to any part of the 
town without help. 

Being an active boy, he joined in all the 
sports of his companions. He learned to 
climb trees, to swim, to ride a horse, and to 
do many other things that showed the un- 
usual activity of his mind. 

One night a man met him and asked the 
way to a neighboring town. John offered to 
go with him. He led him across fields and 
moors, through little lanes and by-paths, and 
brought him to the door of the inn where the 
gentleman was to stay. 

Samuel Smiles, in telling this story, relates 
that the gentleman remarked to the landlord 
of the inn that the boy had probably been 
drinking. 

"Why!" asked the landlord. 

"I judge so from the very peculiar look 
in his eyes." 

"Why," said the landlord, "the boy is stone 
blind." 



A BLIND BOY 57 

"Call him in again," said the gentleman. 

"Are you really blind, my boy?" 

"Yes, sir, I have been blind from my sixth 
year. ' ' 

"Had I known that I would not have come 
over that road with you for a hundred 
pounds." 

"And I," said John, "would not have lost 
my way for a thousand pounds." 

That he was not afraid to travel, however, 
is shown by the fact that he went alone by 
steamer to London. To help pay his expenses 
he took his fiddle with him, and by playing 
earned many a penny now and then. 

From the fact that John was fond of going 
about as freely as one who could see, he 
learned of the bad state of the roads that led 
from town to town over England. When, by 
an act of Parliament, it was decided to con- 
struct a turnpike road in the North of Eng- 
land, John offered to undertake the work, 
blind as he was, and to construct a satisfac- 



58 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

tory roadway. He secured the contract and 
began in a thoroughly businesslike way to be- 
come a road constructor. 

For thirty years that blind man went on 
building highways and bridges. He became 
an expert judge of soil formation. He 
learned to survey, and to manage large gangs 
of laborers successfully. 

At the age of seventy he gave up this occu- 
pation, but, finding that to be happy he must 
he busy, he interested himself in the cotton 
business, learning it in the same thorough 
way that he had learned everything else that 
he turned his mind to. He bought and oper- 
ated several spinning and carding machines. 

But the cotton business offered him less real 
satisfaction than road-making did, so once 
again he turned to it. He secured a contract 
to build a difficult piece of road for the sum 
of seventeen thousand, five hundred dol- 
lars. This work lasted two years, and when 
he accounted for the expense involved in it 



A BLIND BOY 59 

he found himself the loser by two hundred 
dollars. 

No man can guess the span of his own life, 
but there remained yet to John Metcalf 
twenty-three years of activity. He died at 
ninety-three, and was admitted to be the 
greatest and most scientific roadmaker of his 
time. 

The misfortune of being blind never trou- 
bled him. His mind was so full of plans, his 
spirit so fearless, his ambition so great, he 
surpassed thousands of men of his day who 
had no such handicap as he — so far as eyes 
were concerned. 

But they had, and thousands of us in these 
days have, a far worse handicap than blind- 
ness of the eyes, and that is blindness of the 
mind. A man who has that is doomed. 
But if the mind be full of activity, if the 
spirit craves to work, the man can easily over- 
come the most terrible affliction. 



A POOE FARMER 

IT is amazing what can be done by a man 
who has an idea in his head, provided he 
sticks to his idea until he gets it out into the 
open. 

When this happens, everybody wonders how 
he did it. 

But the man knows. There are four rea- 
sons why it happened: 

(1) Sticktoitiveness. (2) Inspiration. (3) 
Perspiration. (4) Pleasure in doing the work 
called for by the idea. 

Somebody expressed the opinion recently 
that a lot of bosh and nonsense is being writ- 
ten these days about loving your work. The 
writer seemed to have the idea that most peo- 
ple do not love their work, and couldn't if 

60 



A POOR FARMER 61 

they tried; that most work isn't worth doing, 
etc., etc. 

But we do not see any articles written as to 
how to hate work and hate it hard. No one 
would spend time writing or reading such an 
article, because the sense of the mind is 
against it. Most people know that to hate 
work only makes matters worse. And the 
man whose day's labor does not give him joy, 
generally finds something to do on the side, 
that does. 

Take the case of Robert Burns, Scotch poet — 
truly a famous man. He was born poor; 
he stayed poor all his life. He succeeded in 
getting into trouble with great frequency. 
He tried all his life to get a scant living out 
of the soil of Scotland, and what he got was 
certainly scant. 

I do not know whether he loved to break 
his back and fill his body with pain over the 
tilling of his land, but I do know that all the 
time he was plowing and digging and plant- 



62 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

ing he was thinking of the land that gave him 
birth, of the people who, like himself, were 
struggling in Scotland, and that all their life 
and their problems so filled his mind that he 
became a famous man by working this idea 
over in his head, and then bringing it out 
into the open. 

The finished job is known as the "Poems of 
Eobert Burns/ ' 

Burns has been dead a good many years, 
and yet every general book store finds itself 
compelled to keep his poems in stock. People 
loved his verses in his lifetime, and they love 
them to-day, and they will love them to-mor- 
row; and they will keep on paying out their 
money just to read the thoughts of a man, who 
spent all his life with his body aching from 
the toil of the fields. 

Now the gist of the whole matter is this. 
The fact that Burns had to work in the fields, 
had to bend his back near the dirt of the 
earth, knowing all the while that most of his 



A POOR FARMER 63 

countrymen were doing the same thing — 

MADE HIM THINK. 

When he had thought about it all day, he 
would plod home at night, climb a ladder to a 
little room under the eaves, and then try to 
put on paper the great Scotch problem of his 
times : how to be true to yourself, though 
poor. It is all told in the poem, "The Cot- 
ter's Saturday Night," Read that poem, and 
you will be convinced that there is no decep- 
tion in a man loving work. Then settle down 
to business and begin to do things. 

It is all a question of what may be called 
deep-sea thinking, of wide-open eyes, and a 
wide-open mind. The tired Spring feeling 
soon begins to stay by a man for twelve 
months in the year, and the result of this is 
that he is dead long before he dies. 

When you read the poems of Burns — if you 
ever do — keep this fact in mind: he wrote 
about the life he lived. About its condi- 
tions, its poverty, its great joy (read "John 



64 A SCOKE OF FAMOUS MEN 

Anderson"), its fun and humor (read 
"Tarn o' Shanter"), its capacity for love, 
and its wonderfully lofty sentiment (read 
"To Mary in Heaven"). 

He did not have to go to distant times and 
countries for his subject. He wrote about 
what he saw and felt. He made plenty of 
mistakes and false steps as he went along, 
but he stuck close to that one great idea — the 
life of the people. 

If you want to write, or if you want to 
speak, follow his rule. Write and talk about 
what you see and feel. A person who does 
this can succeed even without a great educa- 
tion. Burns had practically none. And yet 
he is remembered, though many a learned man 
of his day is entirely forgotten. He wrote 
the truth of his observations. 

Educated people who are soon forgotten 
mistake knowledge for the essential thing, 
which is the truth that is spread all about 
them. Once you see that, and feel it, you 



A POOR FARMER 65 

can talk and write about it, and people will 
listen. 

There is no other way. 

So don't hate what you do. Try to learn 
what it all means. 



[A MAN WHO DID THINGS 

AGEEAT many people go through life 
without an education. By this it is 
commonly meant that they have had little or 
no schooling. But a great many successful 
men and women are reckoned among them — 
people who, despite the handicap of no school- 
ing, have yet got on very admirably in life, 
after their notion of what one should do. 

Mary Lyon could not speak grammatically 
even at twenty-three, yet her name is closely 
associated with American education. 

Eobert Burns had so little schooling that it 
hardly counted in his life. But his poems are 
universally read, and college professors lec- 
ture about him. 

Charles Dickens had practically no educa- 

66 



A MAN WHO DID THINGS 67 

tion, and yet he has been a source of educa- 
tion, as well as of delight, to millions of 
people. 

How Lincoln educated himself is a story 
familiar to all. And yet Lincoln became a 
master of English, as well as of some other 
things. 

These four people, and many others of their 
kind, have become great factors in the educa- 
tion of other people. 

The institution founded by Mary Lyon 
(Mount Holyoke Seminary), is one of the 
foremost in America. 

No person who lays claim even to a little 
culture omits to read the works of Burns and 
Dickens. 

Every year, in the month of February par- 
ticularly, the life and influence of Lincoln are 
read by all people and made the subject of 
study in school. 

A man or woman with an active mind and a 
quick imagination will succeed even in getting 



68 A SCOEE OF FAMOUS MEN 

t i i i i i i i 

an education. If the world of books and 
thought has anything they need, they are sure 
to get it. Undoubtedly with good school and 
college training they might get it sooner and 
better, but if they have the stuff in them of a 
determined thinker and worker, they will get 
it anyway. 

We need only to compare two men to realize 
that it is not education alone, but determina- 
tion, that puts a man forward. With educa- 
tion and determination there s'eems to be no 
limit to his progress. 

Dickens was practically untaught. His 
boyhood was one of hard work and plenty of 
poverty to match. 

The case of John Stuart Mill, a man six 
years older than Dickens, is an illustration of 
another kind. His "Principles of Political 
Economy" is a great work, and it is still re- 
garded as an authority. Naturally he has 
fewer readers than Charles Dickens has. 

The boy was educated by his father, John 



A MAN WHO DID THINGS 69 

Mill, who seems to have given him lessons in 
quite the opposite order of the schools. 

When the boy was three years old he was 
taught the Greek alphabet. At the age of 
eight he had read many Greek books. 
"But," he tells us in the story of his life, "I 
knew little about grammar until later in 
life." 

The first Greek book he read was iEsop's 
Fables. At the age of eight, being able to 
read Greek as easily as you read this page, he 
began to study Latin, and at the same time 
he read many English historical works, among 
them the "Annual Kegister," in thirty vol- 
umes. 

Also, at the age of eight, he began — not 
only Latin, but geometry and algebra, and 
became the schoolmaster to the younger chil- 
dren of the family. His father's main idea 
was to have the boy sure of his "evidence," 
that is, sure of the facts in the case. Hence, 
what he was after was the method of thought. 



70 A SCOEE OF FAMOUS MEN 

He trained the boy to this end until he was 
fourteen. 

At fifteen young Mill went to France, and 
then began that part of his education under 
other teachers than his father. At seventeen 
he entered the India House, in London, as a 
clerk. This work was his livelihood, and he 
did his writing as Charles Lamb did (who 
also was a clerk), outside of office hours. 

John Stuart Mill died at the age of sixty- 
seven, an author who had written many 
books. How much good the early training he 
had, served him may be questioned. But 
there is no question about the next fact: 

WHAT HE DESIRED TO DO, AS AN AUTHOR, HE 
DID. 

A great many people love to think great 
thoughts. After a few minutes of it they go 
to bed. When Mill felt that thoughts worth 
while were in his mind, he went to work in- 
stead of to bed. 

Education is a great thing. But with it, or 



A MAN WHO DID THINGS 71 
without it, the question is: what do your 

THOUGHTS MAKE YOU DO? 

And there is no other question beyond this 
one 



FARM TO PALACE 

ONE day Queen Victoria of England sat 
down to dinner with a guest. The 
Queen was then young, for this was in 1839. 
Her guest was a man of so great dignity and 
of such striking appearance that when he 
w T alked through the streets of London people 
stopped to gaze at him in admiration. Dig- 
nity came out of him like perfume out of a 
flower. 

Most biography is written forward. You 
begin with the boy and end with the man. 
This time we will begin with the dinner at 
the palace, and by going backward try to find 
out how the guest got the invitation to sit at 
the table of the greatest queen of her times. 

When the guest was at home, he lived on a 
farm in Massachusetts. He had gradually 

72 



FARM TO PALACE 73 

made it a fine country place by spending time 
and money in improving it. One day he put 
on his old clothes, and, wandering around his 
fields, looked at the growing crops, at the cat- 
tle and trees. "I would rather be here," he 
said, ' ' than in the United States Senate. ' ' 

As a matter of fact, he was then a Senator. 
Just before this he had been a member of the 
Cabinet of President Taylor and of Presi- 
dent W. H. Harrison, serving as Secretary 
of State. 

On the Fourth of July, 1826, the United 
States had been independent for fifty years; 
and on that same day two of its truly great 
men died — John Adams and Thomas Jeffer- 
son. Both had served as Presidents. Both 
had won renown as public servants. The 
country honored them in many ways, one of 
which was in a memorial service held in Fan- 
euil Hall, Boston. 

The Queen's guest was the orator on that 
occasion. It has been said that p.ever before 



74 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

i— — — — — — — — — —i i i— —— ■ 

in the history of the world was so great an 
oration delivered as that. 

At the age of thirty he condemned with his 
oratory, the war with England, the war of 
1812. In that year, and before, he was a 
lawyer with an office in a ' ' common, ordinary 
room." He had been offered the position as 
clerk in the County Court, salary fifteen hun- 
dred dollars. 

His father was a judge in this same court., 
and it pleased him to think that his son was 
to be thus associated with him. After some 
thought on the matter, he asked the advice of 
a friend, who said : 

"You are poor, but there are worse things 
than poverty. Finish your studies, make 
yourself useful. Have nothing to fear." 

Then the youth told his father that he 
would not accept the clerkship. The old 
judge looked at him angrily, and said: 

"My son, your mother always held that 
you would amount to a good deal or to noth- 



FARM TO PALACE 75 

ing. I think you have settled the matter/ ' 

We need only to go a little farther back. 
The youth taught school and helped his father 
on the farm in New Hampshire. 

One day while they were getting in the hay, 
the judge looked at his son, and said : 

"Daniel, this kind of work hardly suits you. 
You must prepare for better things than pitch- 
ing hay." 

So after many trials and misunderstand- 
ings he was enabled to hang his sign on the 
office door : 

D. WEBSTER, ATTORNEY 

After that, with strict attention to business, 
it was a story of hard work, of success, and 
of dinner with a queen. 



A NEW ENGLAND PHILOSOPHER 

SENATOR BEVERIDGE, in a book writ- 
ten for young men, urges them to read 
the works of Emerson, the so-called Concord 
philosopher. He especially recommends the 
Essays, and of them, particularly these: 
"Character/' "Manners" and "Self-Reli- 
ance." 

Many people find it difficult to read Emer- 
son 's Essays. And yet there must be a popu- 
lar demand for his works, for they are re- 
printed in many cheap editions, and can be 
purchased for a few cents. 

Those who enjoy Emerson's writing enjoy 
it immensely. He seems to show you, more by 
a hint than by what he says in exact words, 
what you may often have surmised about 

76 



A PHILOSOPHER 77 

yourself. There is a mystical quality to his 
writing that seems full of suggestion to some 
readers. 

His essay entitled l ' Compensation, ' ' and his 
book on Nature have been universally praised. 
It would seem best to read " Self -Reliance" 
first, then "Compensation," then "Friend- 
ship." This will acquaint you with his style 
and peculiarity of expression, and make all 
further reading of his works easier. 

It may appear at first that there is little 
connection between one paragraph and an- 
other; often, between one sentence and the 
next. But close study shows that there is a 
connective point that it is worth while to find. 

You may find it easier to read, not the Es- 
says first, but the following books: (1) "So- 
ciety and Solitude," (2) "Conduct of Life," 
(3) "Representative Men." 

They are, in a sense, simpler than the Es- 
says, and those who care to read discussions 
on such themes as Work, Culture, Books, etc., 



78 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

will find them worth not only one reading, but 
many. 

On first reading Emerson's works one 
thinks he is forever trying to put the greatest 
meaning in the fewest words. This is true. 
And because he does this he leaves the reader's 
mind free to study over the suggestion he 
offers. He never exclaims or elaborates, but 
keeps on throwing out one surprising hint 
after another. At the end of one of his sen- 
tences you must stop and wait and think it 
over. It reminds you of traveling by a train 
that stops at every station and allows you to 
get out and spend a while looking about. Of 
course, you get a much broader idea of the 
country that way than if you travel through 
it by express and sleep in a berth all 
night. 

You can readily tell if the sentences of this 
writer reach you. Here are a few. The first 
one is simple, but those who want something 
for nothing will not care for it : 



A PHILOSOPHER 79 

1 ' Every man is a consumer and ought to be 
a producer." 

If Emerson can make us get out of the train 
when we read the next one, it may benefit us : 

"The practical question is: How shall I 
live?" 

The next quotation might make some rogues 
laugh, though later on they might not laugh 
so heartily: 

"A man's fortunes are the fruit of his 
character." 

Sometimes he gets down to concrete facts 
and directions, thus: 

"The way to learn German is to read the 
same dozen pages over and over again a hun- 
dred times, till you know every word and 
particle in them, and can pronounce and re- 
peat them by heart." 

Here is another concrete fact : 

"Go with mean people and you think life 
is mean." 

In another mood he reaches out and seems 



80 A SCOKE OF FAMOUS MEN 

to tap you on the head as if to wake you up : 

"A man is a god in disguise, playing the 
fool. ' ' 

"When the eyes say one thing and the 
tongue another, a wise man relies on the lan- 
guage of the first/' which means that while 
the tongue is lying the eyes speak the truth. 

"A little integrity is better than any ca- 
reer," or, better be humble and honest than 
a great artist in getting other people's money 
while their eyes are shut. 

If you can read Emerson he will be a school- 
master to you. Don't be impatient with him. 
He will chastise you. If you are honest he 
will show you that you have a wealth of char- 
acter. If you tell truths with the eyes and 
not with your words he will shame you. If 
you feel that the top of your head is inactive, 
to read him will start the wheels going as 
Nature intended. 

And, after all, when an author can do these 
things for us it must be worth while to try 



A PHILOSOPHER 81 

him. Too many authors comfort us, tickle us 
with a perfumed feather. Here is one who 
makes you stand up and take what is coming. 



A LAME BOY 

IT is said that the best two biographies in 
the English language are Boswell's "Life 
of Johnson," and J. G. Lockhart's "Life of 
Walter Scott." Lockhart was Scott's son-in- 
law, and his account of the great Scotch au- 
thor is full of detail that makes you know ex- 
actly what kind of a man he was. Such books 
are the moving pictures of literature. The 
films are in the page, and your own brain is 
the machine that throws them on the screen 
of the imagination. 

As a boy, Scott was whole-hearted, bright, 
active and cheerful. He loved to play, de- 
spite his lameness. 

Walter Scott was not much of a success in 
school, although he loved to read history, par- 



A LAME BOY 83 

ticularly that embodied in the stories of his 
own people, the "Border Chivalry," as he 
knew it. 

Now, such tales are full of action, and the 
boy not only read them, but he would gather 
his school friends about him and recite them 
by the hour. This is one important fact in 
his life, it was the way he began to learn 

EVERYTHING THAT AFTERWARD MADE THE 
WAVERLEY NOVELS. 

In the course of time, the cheerful lame boy 
studied law and was admitted to the bar. 
Then he became a county sheriff, and, finally, 
clerk of the court at Edinburgh, receiving as 
a salary for his services about eight thousand 
dollars per year. He was thirty-four before 
his first great book was published — "The Lay 
of the Last Minstrel." Forty thousand 
copies were sold in Great Britain alone. This 
success led Scott to choose authorship as his 
life work. "Marmion" was printed in 1808, 
and the publishers made him an offer of five 



84 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

thousand dollars for it before they had even 
seen the manuscript. 

Was the lame man filled with pride over his 
success ? 

This incident answers that question. When 
he was forty-two years old the Prince Regent 
asked Scott to accept the post of Poet Laure- 
ate. He was acknowledged to be the most 
popular poet in Great Britain. It was an 
honor, and great men of his time craved it- 
But Scott not only declined the position, but 
he worked hard to secure it for his friend, 
Robert Southey, who, he replied, needs the 
salary more than I do. 

In the same year, 1813, Scott began his first 
novel, "Waverley." In the next eleven or 
twelve years he wrote about twenty of these 
books, which we know as the Waverley Nov- 
els. They brought him about one hundred 
and twenty-five thousand dollars, a sum 
much more in those days than ?.t is in these of 
high cost of living. 



A LAME BOY 85 

For many years only a very few of his inti- 
mate friends knew that he was the author of 
these famous books, for they were published 
without his name. In fact, he was so par- 
ticular that he should not be spoken of as 
their author that his family used to call him 
"The Great Unknown." 

The success that made Scott's life so pleas- 
ant in many ways was disturbed by his in- 
vestment of money in a publishing house. 
Neither the publishers, nor Scott himself, ever 
gave much attention to the details of the busi- 
ness and they all woke up one morning to the 
fact that a failure stared them in the face. 
The debts amounted to over half a million of 
dollars. 

This happened when Scott was fifty-two 
years old. Look around among your friends 
and see how many of them over fifty have 
plenty of fight left in them; how many of 
them have the courage to face an enormous 
debt and not lose heart. When Scott's 



86 A SCOEE OF FAMOUS MEN 

friends offered him enough money to fail on 
with satisfaction to the creditors, he said, 
44 No ! This right hand shall work it all off." 

So he set his right hand at work with pen 
and ink and paper, and his imagination filled 
the pages of more books with those wonderful 
pictures that you have probably read many 
times with great pleasure. Bit by bit that 
great debt of a half million dollars began to 
disappear. He had paid off about one-half of 
it when his health failed, and there was no 
more work in him. But the lame man had 
won the honor of all his people, and a govern- 
ment frigate was sent to take him to the 
Mediterranean that he might have the benefit 
of a southern trip. 

He made the journey and returned to his 
home worse than a lame man — a man broken 
in spirit — for he felt that his work was not 
yet done. He had lived a busy life ; his pride 
was to be held in the memory of his friends 
as an honest man. He had been successful, 



A LAME BOY 87 

had won wealth, honor at court, and the praise 
of the English reading public. What did it 
all teach him? 

It taught him this: 

As he lay on his deathbed he called his 
son-in-law, Lockhart, to him, and said: 

"I have but a minute to speak to you. My 
dear, be a good man, be virtuous, be religious, 
be a good man. Nothing else will give you 
any comfort when you come to lie here." 

The body was lame, but the spirit had! 
wings. 



r AN IRISH BOY 

FEW people who read English have not 
read or heard of a famous book called 
"The Vicar of "Wakefield." It was written 
by an Irishman who, as a boy, tried his hand 
at many things and failed at most of them. 

His father was a farmer and preacher, and 
his son, Oliver Goldsmith, had the advantage 
of going to school and preparing for the uni- 
versity. He tells us that his great asset was 
a "knack of hoping." This cheered him 
when he was blue, and led him to look, like 
Micawber, for "something to turn up." 

After his father's death his uncle urged 
him to study for the church. "While at this 
he gained a great reputation for singing songs 
and telling stories. When the day came for 
him to present himself to the bishop for ordi- 

88 



AN IRISH BOY 89 

nation he wore his ' ' scarlet breeches, ' ' and, of 
course, as we say in these days, he was turned 
down. 

Then he spent some time teaching the chil- 
dren of a gentleman's family. This work was 
not to his taste, for it kept him from his story 
telling and song singing, and from playing on 
his flute. So he gave it up ; and with a little 
over a hundred dollars in his pocket he set out 
to see the world, on horseback; hoping to 
make his way, not only with his money, but 
with his story telling and his music. 

Some few weeks later he turned up at the 
front door, on a little pony, poor as he could 
be, having spent all his money. 

Then he tried the law, and set out for Lon- 
don to study. On the way he met a jolly lot 
of young men, and before the next morning 
all his money was gambled away. So he left 
London on the left, and went to Edinburgh to 
study medicine. This time he did stick to it 
for a while, but the love of travel tempted him 



90 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

■ i i ii < 

to the countries of Europe, and thither he 
went, tramping from place to place, playing 
his flute for those who wanted to sing or dance. 
Tou can read the story of this adventure in 
"The Vicar of Wakefield." 

After a while, with plenty of poverty mixed 
with his " knack of hoping," he settled down 
to writing. He became acquainted with the 
leading men of his time. He wrote much that 
is loved by English readers of to-day, and 
much else that is forgotten. 

Having been a soldier of fortune for many 
years, it finally occurred to him to become a 
philosopher. Here is the way he set about it, 
as described in one of his own letters: 

"I have already given my landlady orders 
for an entire reform in the state of my fi- 
nances. I declaim against hot suppers, drink 
less sugar in my tea and check my grate with 
brickbats. Instead of hanging my room with 
pictures I intend to adorn it with maxims of 
frugality. Those will make pretty furniture 



AN IRISH BOY 91 

enough and won't be a bit too expensive; for 
I will draw them all out with my own hands, 
and my landlady 's daughter shall frame them 
with the parings of my black waistcoat. Each 
maxim is to be inscribed on a sheet of clean 
paper and wrote with my best pen, of which 
the following will serve as a specimen. 

LOOK SHARP ; MIND THE MAIN CHANCE ; MONEY 
IS MONEY NOW; IP YOU HAVE A THOUSAND 
POUNDS YOU CAN PUT YOUR HANDS BY YOUR 
SIDES AND SAY YOU ARE WORTH A THOUSAND 
POUNDS EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR; TAKE A 
FARTHING FROM A HUNDRED AND IT WILL BE A 
HUNDRED NO LONGER.' ' 

In general appearance, Goldsmith was 
rather short, about five feet five. His hair 
was brown, and on it, as the custom was, he 
wore a wig. He was a cheerful man ; in fact, 
he must have been, to live the happy-go-lucky 
life he chose. But back of it all there was a 
solid character, and with this he won the ad- 
miration of many great men. 



92 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

One writer said of him, "The poor fellow 
was never so friendless but he would befriend 
someone else." 

If he had no money or food for the children 
of a poor London street, he pulled his flute 
out of his coat pocket and played tunes for 
them so that they should dance their unhappi- 
ness away. 

Being fond of story telling and being Irish, 
he was, of course, humorous. He and Samuel 
Johnson were eating a kidney supper together 
one evening. 

"These are pretty little things," said John- 
son, "but it takes a lot of them to fill a man." 

"Yes," said Goldsmith, "but how many of 
them would it take to reach to the moon?" 

"That," said Johnson, "is beyond your 
power to calculate." 

"Not at all, not at all, I think I can tell." 

"Well, then, let us hear." 

"Why," said Goldsmith, "just one; if it 
were long enough. 



J> 



THE FATHER OF A GREAT STATE 

WILLIAM PENN was an Englishman, 
born in the year 1644. He was a 
traveler, a man of affairs, an adviser of kings, 
and a thinker on those subjects which are 
more permanent than places, business, kings 
or queens. 

At the age of forty-eight Mr. Penn began to 
write about those thoughts that seemed to 
him of permanent value. He had mingled 
with men of low and high degree, he had 
spent some time in jail, he was the friend of 
anyone in trouble, and he had founded a col- 
ony in America that bore his name. All this 
made him feel that he could safely write out 
certain impressions of life that might be of 
value to others. That he was a man of honor- 
able intent he proved to the world by making 

93 



94 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

a treaty with the Indians, under a great tree 
on the bank of the Delaware river; a treaty 
that has been described as one not ratified by 
an oath, and one that was never broken. 

William Penn lived a remarkably busy life 
among men, and yet when he came to give a 
name to his little book he called it "Fruits of 
Solitude." 

Solitude, he says, is a schoolroom few care 
to learn in, though it is the best of all places 
for instruction. "Some parts of my book," 
he says, "are the results of serious reflection, 
others the flashings of lucid intervals." 

Like the famous note book of the Roman 
Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, this, too, was 
written for "private satisfaction." While 
William Penn wrote, it was, so to say, to box 
his own compass, to see where he was on the 
ocean of life and to put down in his log book 
the impressions he had picked up on the jour- 
ney. And all this for his present satisfaction 
and his future guidance. 



THE FATHER OF A STATE 95 

Penn offers to us two valuable suggestions : 
(1) Until we stop and step a little aside out 
of the noisy crowd of the world and calmly 
look about we shall never be able to knojv our- 
selves. (2) We waste nothing so freely as 
time. Time is what we most want, and yet 
we use it the worst. 

If we go no further in the Fruits of Solitude 
than this, it would pay most of us to get these 
two hints. We are all guilty. We all hope 
the noise of the crowd will keep us from hear- 
ing the still, small voice within, and we all 
waste time. 

But if we read further we shall find that he 
keeps up the good advice, and is always prac- 
tical. His words are simple, paragraphs 
short, each one numbered so that we can easily 
keep our place; also, we can stop when we 
will, and at every stopping place have some- 
thing to think upon that is worth while. 

You may think on reading the first pages 
of this book that it is a religious book and you 



96 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

may threw it in the corner and pick up some- 
thing more exciting. 

It is not a religious book, although it is a 
serious one. But to everyone, now and then, 
even to the butcher, the baker and the candle- 
stick man, life takes a serious turn. When it 
does this for any one of those gentlemen, it 
would be well for him to have a little serious- 
ness about him, for in it he would find com- 
fort. 

Though Penn's little book was first pub- 
lished in 1693 (and without his name), yet 
its common sense is of use in these days. For 
example : 

1. Excess in dress is a costly folly. The 
trimmings of the vain would clothe the naked. 

(Not long ago a paper printed a news 
item about a woman whose evening shoes were 
made of humming birds' breasts.) 

2. Do nothing improperly. 

(Because things are not properly done, it 
is very easy in these days for a hundred or 



THE FATHER OP A STATE 97 

more girls to be roasted to death because the 
fire escapes are not in order.) 

3. The glory of a servant is fidelity. 

(Not long ago the officers of the law had 
to bring a man home from Mexico who had 
trotted down there with about two hundred 
thousand dollars of his neighbors' money.) 

4. Be rather bountiful, than expensive. 

(A few days ago, a man of forty explained, 
before he went to jail, how he had fixed his 
accounts so as to spend a few thousands of 
dollars more than he was earning.) 

Penn's Fruits of Solitude apply in 1912 
with so close a fit that you cannot see the 
joints. 



r A WRITER OF FABLES 

AT all times in the world's history people 
have been fond of fables. A fable is a 
short and very simple story that is supposed 
to illustrate a truth. 

For example, here is one : 

1 * The hares were arguing in a meeting one 
day that all animals should have equal rights. 
A lion arose and said: 'Friends, your words 
sound grand, but you have neither the teeth 
nor the claws that we have.' " 

Of course, it is clear that if the lions had 
been arguing for equal rights, the hares would 
have said nothing. So this fable could have 
been made to illustrate a great truth, in two 
ways. 

But there is no question about the next one : 

"A wolf, passing a hut, looked in at the 

98 



A WRITER OF FABLES 99 

door and saw some shepherds eating mutton 
for dinner. Calling out to them, he said : 

" 'What a row you would make if you 
caught me doing the same thing V " 

"Which, after all, is only another view of 
equal rights. 

The great writer of fables was a slave named 
JEsop. Where he was born, nobody knows. 
The date of his birth was about 600 B. C, 
twenty-five hundred years ago. A great num- 
ber of learned men have written about him, 
and one, a Frenchman, devoted several years 
to trying to learn the facts of his life. This 
shows that being a slave is an accident of 
social conditions, but being a thinker is a 
matter of another kind. No one has ever 
cared to write the life of the man that owned 
JEsop. In fact, ^Esop seems to have been 
owned by two masters, one of whom gave him 
his liberty because he was impressed by his 
learning and wit. 

Once free, the former slave raised himself 



100 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

to a high position. He traveled in many 
countries. No one knows what books he read, 
but everyone knows the book he wrote — 
which, after all, is more to the point. He 
visited many cities of the ancient world, and 
was invited by Croesus to live at Sardis. 

Croesus, you may remenrber, was said to be 
the richest man who ever lived. So we say, 
in these days, "as rich as Croesus/' when we 
speak of a very wealthy man. Like the oil, 
sugar and steel gentlemen of to-day, Croesus 
made it a custom to give away money ; not to 
colleges and libraries, but after the manner of 
his time. 

One day he sent JEsop to a town called 
Delphi, to distribute a large sum among its 
people. Every one of them was so anxious to 
get it all that JEsop was disgusted with them, 
and sent it back to the king. For this, the 
people killed him; a sad end for a man who 
has money to give away. 

If they had not killed iEsop, he might have 



A WRITER OF FABLES 101 

written one more fable about being greedy, 
something like this: 

There was once a very rich man who called 
his private secretary to him, and said: 

" Clarence, here are a couple of million dol- 
lars. Go down Broadway, and ask the first 
ten people you meet how much money they 
need to make them happy. Get the name and 
address of each, and bring it to me." 

So Clarence started in at Forty-second 
street and Broadway, and walked south. The 
first man he met said to him: 

"I never give to charity." He misunder- 
stood the question. The next person was a 
newsboy. He understood the question all 
right, and threw a snowball at Clarence. 

The next three people told him he was 
crazy. 

The sixth was a lady, who complained to an 
officer that, "this man insulted me." 

Clarence had a good deal of trouble con- 
vincing the judge that what he was doing was 



102 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

following directions. But he did so, and the 
judge sent him home, with the advice "not to 
act like a fool again." 

As Clarence was leaving the court-room a 
well-dressed man said to him: 

"Is that straight about old man So-and-So 
wanting to give away two million dollars?" 

Clarence nodded. 

"Well, then, why in , that is, why did 

you not see me first ? I live in his ward, and 
control more than half the voters there." 

This fable teaches that the only way to dis- 
tribute money gratis is to do it with system. 

iEsop discovered that. 



WALKING TO LONDON 

THE goddess Fortune does not sit in an 
office. She walks the streets, up and 
down, ready to meet those who will play the 
game according to the rules, and take her 
gifts for the trouble. 

If we want this lady to smile on us we, too, 
must walk the streets, up and down, missing 
nothing, and waiting patiently until she comes 
along. After that, if we play the game ac- 
cording to the rules, the rest is easy. 

There used to live in a small English city, 
a bookseller, who had one child, a boy named 
Samuel. He grew to be a great ungainly 
youth, much like other boys in many ways, 
and yet unlike them in many other ways. To 
begin with, he was sick most of his life. He 
was nearly blind. He suffered from melan- 

103 



104 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

cholia, commonly called having the blues, and 
he had them in a bad form. He was super- 
stitious; absent-minded; underfed for many- 
years, and overfed when he found a chance to 
get as much to eat as he wanted. 

When Samuel was a little boy, his mother 
took him into the presence of Queen Anne, 
that she might touch him for the disease called 
the king's evil (scrofula), for it was believed 
in those days that the royal touch would cure 
anyone of the disease with the royal name. 
But it didn't cure Samuel. 

"When he was ready for it, he went to col- 
lege, to Pembroke at Oxford — a friend of the 
family promising to pay his bills, only, by the 
way, he did not do so. When Samuel arrived 
at the college gate the boys spotted him for a 
scarecrow, and began to have fun with him. 
He was ragged and unkempt, and funny to 
look at, and probably unclean. After a while 
he was called before the examiners of the col- 
lege. He shuffled up the stairs and went 



WALKING TO LONDON 105 

into the presence of the mighty men whose 
learning has made Oxford famous for many 
centuries. They asked Samuel questions 
about all sorts of things, and he answered 
them in his own way. "While he was shuffling 
down the stairs again, these mighty men looked 
at one another, and confessed that no one had 
ever come to Oxford who knew so much as 
Samuel Johnson. 

Then he went down to the gate again, and 
the boys began once more to have fun with 
him. But this time he began to get his bear- 
ings and to talk to them. It was not long 
before their fun changed to wonder, and their 
wonder to respect. 

What next? 

After a while he walked to London to meet 
Fortune. And he walked and walked for 
years and never had a glimpse of her. But 
meanwhile the knowledge that had so sur- 
prised the Oxford professors kept on increas- 
ing and forcing him to show himself. Now a 



106 A SCORE OP FAMOUS MEN 

play, or a poem, or the life of a friend (read 
his life of Richard Savage), then the English 
Dictionary. 

Meanwhile, out of obscurity, the name of 
Samuel Johnson became known in the literary 
life of London, but still the poverty hung to 
him. But he went on writing this and that 
book, getting a meal when he could in a base- 
ment tripe shop, knocking down any man who 
insulted him (and some did). Then on top 
of it all, a pension of 300 pounds ($1,500) 
was offered him on the part of the King. 

And he hesitated to take it, wondering if he 
would thereby lose that independence of 
thought and action w T hich he had always kept 
by him as his best possession. But his friends 
showed him that he would do himself great 
injustice not to accept it. And he did. So 
for the rest of his life he had, at least, common 
comforts? Oh, no. He did not spend all 
those pounds sterling on himself. Anyone 
who was poor could have a share, not only of 



WALKING TO LONDON 107 

the money, but of the house he lived in. And 
he had plenty of pensioners, who not only 
took what he gave them, but grumbled at the 
accommodations. 

One day a man who was in danger of going 
to jail for debt sent for Samuel Johnson to 
help him out. He went and found his friend 
held up by the constable for non-payment of 
rent to the landlady. Johnson gave his friend 
a guinea and asked him if he had any bit of 
writing that could be sold to a publisher. 

The poor author gave him a package and 
Johnson went off to sell it. And he did. It 
was a story. And the name of it was the 
" Vicar of Wakefield," the poor gentleman 
who owed his landlady being no other than 
Oliver Goldsmith. 



LINCOLN AND HIS BOOKS 

READING is something like motor 
power — of value when it is hitched to 
something that will move forward. 

A manufacturer said once that he always 
liked to know that the young man who worked 
for him was a book reader. If he reads books 
about the affairs of daily life — work, health, 
money, food, gardening, anything that con- 
nects with practical living — it is sure to do 
him good. 

And it does him good because it tells him 
what he does not know about his own affairs 
and the environment in which he lives. It 
leads him to be a finer workman, to take care 
of his health and of his money, to beautify 
his home ; in brief, it stirs him up and makes 
him move. 



108 



LINCOLN AND HIS BOOKS 109 

We ought to avoid books that do not make 
us move forward; that do not urge us to do 
things. As a rule, we read too much. It is 
easy to get books, to skip from one to another ; 
to handle many, and to know none. A few 
well read (that is, read often) will do more 
for us than half knowing a great number. 

Lincoln's books were few. His boyhood li- 
brary was made up of: 

(1) The Bible, (2) ^sop's Fables, (3) 
Robinson Crusoe, (4) Pilgrim's Progress, (5) 
A History of the United States, (6) Life of 
Washington, (7) Franklin's Autobiography, 
and, later on, of (8) The Life of Henry Clay, 
(9) Poems by Robert Burns, (10) The Plays 
of Shakespeare. 

These few books seem to have passed their 
qualities over to him. He could think clearly, 
use simple language, and always move directly 
upon the subject in hand. Perhaps the prin- 
cipal influence of these books is found in his 
use of English. He wrote clearly and simply, 



110 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

using no unnecessary words, and yet painting 
a picture that was large in its proportions, 
and as clear as a bright day in its effect. 

The closing lines of the Gettysburg speech 
illustrate this. 

"We here highly resolve that these dead 
shall not have died in vain; that this nation, 
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, 
and that government of the people, by the 
people, for the people, shall not perish from 
the earth." 

Here is stated the purpose of the Republic 
in forty-three words, of which thirty-four are 
words of one syllable. And every one clear 
even to a child. 

It is not, however, the one-syllable word 
that is always best ; it is having something* to 
say, knowing exactly what you want to say, 
and having learned by observation, how to 
say it the most direct way. 

"We must think of the thing to say. Read- 
ing good books will help us in the effort to say 



LINCOLN AND HIS BOOKS 111 

it. Lincoln could think. Books helped him 
to clothe his thoughts in words. 

Everybody, by close and long-continued 
study, can gain the same power of expression. 

We must remember : 

To read a few books of the best kind. 

To read them over and over again. 

To aim to tell our message in a few words ; 
the shorter, the better. 

After a while the spirit of the language art 
we are learning will creep into our speech, 
and we shall be able to talk in simple words 
and say something. 

The Latin side of English is rich in long 
words. Samuel Johnson preferred them. 
Here is a characteristic sentence that shows 
his use of them: 

"They who imagine themselves entitled to 
veneration by the prerogative of longer life, 
are inclined to treat the notions of those whose 
conduct they superintend with supercilious- 
ness and contempt." 



112 A SCORE OF FAMOUS MEN 

The Anglo-Saxon side of English is rich in 
short words. The Book of Ruth, in the Old 
Testament, is of this order of English. Com- 
pare this sentence with that by Johnson : 

"And she went, and came, and gleaned in 
the field after the reapers.' ' 

Thirteen words, and eleven of them are of 
one syllable. 



